Celebrate the last of the Lunar New Year events at the Los Angeles Chinese American Museum’s FREE Lantern Festival, noon – 10pm, Saturday, March 1, rain or shine.

Lantern Festival activities, from lion dances to Chinese arts and crafts are usually held outdoors, but with the rainy weather visiting the LA-area, the museum has moved most of the free fun fest indoors. And for those activities held outside, like L.A.’s popular food trucks (eats are not free), the museum is providing covering to protect visitors from the rain.

The 13th annual fest includes a variety of performances from comedians to martial arts to Chinese folk dances. Introduce the kids to Chinese and Asian culture with free arts and crafts including Abacus-making, Chinese paper-cutting and an origami workshop. And of course, don’t miss the Red Lion Dance!

LACMA is offering more than a fee-free entrance for the whole family on Feb. 17 — the day is filled with bilingual tours, free programs and art-making activities. Listen to live music by Latin Grammy nominee, Quattro, at 12:30 and 2:45 p.m., in celebration of the museum’s exhibit, Fútbol: The Beautiful Game.

A free, general admission ticket is required to visit LACMA on this Target Free Holiday Monday. For more information contact the museum at 323-857-6010. The ticket does not include admission to the special exhibit, James Turrell: A Retrospective and Calder and Abstraction: From Avant-Garde to Iconic.

MORE FREE FUN: Visit the Boone Children’s Gallery. Entrance tickets will be timed and distributed on a first-come, first-served basis. Pick up your free, timed ticket in the Boone Children’s Gallery on the day of the event. Timed tickets allow for a 30-minute visit.

#Getonup and get down at Grand Park L.A. Valentine’s Day with a free dance party that lasts all night long. Hit the dance floor with live music by Breakestra, Orgone, and Funky Sole DJS Music Man Miles and Clifton. The free fun in downtown Los Angeles is supported by The Echo and Spaceland Presents.

Romance your honey from 8 p.m. to 1 a.m. Sneak in to the free photo booth for a special V-Day remembrance. Bring money for the full bar by The Echo and these food trucks: Oooh La La Crepes, Cousins Maine Lobster and The Grilled Cheese Truck. Flowers and sweets also a available for purchase.

Get in on free admission to 20 Los Angeles-area museums, during the Museums Free-For-All on Saturday, January 25.

It’s the 9th annual free admission for all offer from SoCal Museums, a marketing group for L.A. area institutions that present art, cultural heritage, natural history, and science to residents and tourists. The free admission opportunity is for general museum admission only and may not apply to special ticketed exhibitions. Parking fees still apply.

Who’s in on the free fun? Check our list below. Be sure to click on the individual museums to find out about hours and other visitor information.

Find out what a newt looks like for free when Heal the Bay’s Santa Monica Pier Aquariumunveils a remodeled exhibit space Saturday Jan. 18. To celebrate the revamped Dorothy Green Room, the popular marine science center is offering free admission to all during the grand opening. The room is named in honor of Heal the Bay’s founder and features interactive displays and two new exhibits of live animals.

During the celebration from 12:30 – 5 p.m., special guest presenters will showcase animals typically found in the region’s rivers and streams, including Gary Bucciarrelli of UCLA’s Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, who will bring California newts to accompany his talk about healthy watersheds. Visitors can also visit with a menagerie of animals, including raptors and repltiles, will be on display that day only through Inside the Outdoors, an Orange County-based nonprofit.

Cirque du Soleil Totem

The free admission is courtesy of Cirque du Soleil,which is setting up its giant blue-and-yellow performance tent in the beach lot adjacent to the Pier for a run of their show, TOTEM. The partnership with Cirque Du Soleil continues in February, with their sponsorship of Free Fridays at the Aquarium. Cirque Du Soleil will also provide funding for five groups of students from low-income schools to attend field trip programs at the Aquarium.

Go into the New Year with our annual giveaway of a signed copy of Lalo Alcaraz’s cartoon calendar! Lalo is the Los Angeles artist behind the first nationally syndicated, politically-themed Latino daily comic strip, “La Cucaracha,” the satirical website Pocho.com and host of the KPFK radio show, “Pocho Hour of Power.” And this year, he’s got a new gig as a writer on Seth McFarland’s animated comedy show, “Bordertown” !

Lalo’s 2014 cartoon calendar features 12 frameable glossy prints of his popular editorial cartoons and La Cucaracha Sunday comics. Each month also features important and made up holidays and historical facts.

Enter to win one for yourself or a friend. The calendars make a unique holiday gift for Mexmas so consider buying one or more copies! The cost is only $20 for a signed calendar — a frugal deal for great art by a local artist — and the prices are discounted when you buy more than one. Click here to purchase!

How do you enter for a chance to win a free Lalo Alcaraz 2014 Cartoon Calendar? Just answer this question: Who is your favorite La Cucaracha character?

Where do you answer? You will earn an entry for each of these: 1. Follow @FreeFunLA then tweet “I want to win the Lalo Alcaraz 2014 Cartoon Calendar from @FreeFunLA” followed by the name of your fave La Cucaracha character. You must follow @FreeFunLA to win. 2. Post the answer here on our blog comments. 3. Post an answer on our Facebook fan page. Be sure to “Like” Free Fun Los Angeles for a chance to win! 4.Post an answer on our Google+ page. Be sure to add Free Fun Los Angeles to your circles.

In a unique collaboration, Heal the Bay and Time Warner Cable are sponsoring a FREE family-friendly festival on the Santa Monica Pier featuring interactive science, technology, engineering and math activities using art as the medium and fun as the common denominator, on Saturday, November 9. For more than five hours, kids and adults alike can explore science from a unique perspective, starting at 11:30 a.m. and ending at 5 p.m.

The free fest features S.T.E.A.M. Machines at the east end of the Pier. What are they? Interactive pieces that celebrate Science, Technology, Engineering and Math – with an infusion of Art.

This is an easy free thing to do on Friday night especially for a cool but cheap date night! Hold hands while you see eye-to-eye with the ocean’s ultimate predators during the Aquarium’s Friday Shark Lagoon Nights. It’s free admission to see the sharks 6 to 9 p.m. through December 27.

It’s also an awesome opportunity for families to experience free fun. Kids love touching more than 150 sharks and seeing large sharks such as sand tigers in the Aquarium’s Shark Lagoon. The Free Shark Lagoon Nights are almost every Friday night. Can be cancelled due to inclement weather so call ahead!

Coffee, hot cocoa, beer, wine, desserts, and snacks available for purchase and the gift shop is open. Plus live music. So make a party of it while you experience a little bit of what the aquarium has to offer.

Now that the summer visiting crush is over, the stunning Natural History Museum in Exposition Park has a FREE admission day — well, make that four free Tuesdays in September. That means no paying the piper on Sept. 3, 10, 17, 24. That’s a savings of $12 per adult admission!

You can visit the extraodinary renovated Dinosaur Hall with 300 real fossils and the only trio of different aged T. rex specimens in the world, all for free. Walk through the new 3.5-acre Nature Gardens then wander back inside to explore life at the new Nature Lab. What else does the museum offer?